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@Vinnie I started listening to E.P. Sanders’ A Very Short Introduction to Paul, and was struck by his reliance on a pre-millenial reading of Paul. The Last Days could very well refer to the New Covenant age. Conversely, I greatly appreciated how N.T. Wright reads the coming of Jesus on the clouds as a reference to the ascension.
Thanks for this, Terry. I “understood” that Wright’s views on Paul were “controversial” and therefore “wrong” maybe in college. And John MacArthur’s teaching, were consistent with Christianity as I knew it. I always thought of Wright as rather fringey. Until maybe 10 years ago, when I read “Surprised by Scripture” and some other book.
Certainly not controversial; absolutely not fringey.
Right now I"m working on “The Paul of History” from your OP. That’s been really interesting so far. I’ll try to finish it today.
As I am drawn into this topic, Sanders introduction to Paul is very stimulating, this quote caught my attention
In contrast to some more radical scholars who accused Paul of arbitrarily misrepresenting Judaism in order to score polemical points, Dunn and Wright tried to find a way to match Paul’s polemic with the Judaism that Sanders described. And here, indeed, in my view, is the driving impulse of the new perspective. In all its diversity—and it is, of course, quite diverse!—the new perspective is fundamentally about re-reading Paul as a first-century “converted” Jew engaged in dialogue and dispute with covenantal nomism.
Another exceptional admission from the author of the review on Barclay’s book
Sometime in the early 1980s—the exact date is lost in the fog of time—I foolishly agreed to debate E. P. Sanders on these issues. At one point in the debate, Sanders asked me, “Dr. Moo, have you read the entire Mishnah in Hebrew?” “No,” I replied—too embarrassed to admit just how much of it I had read. “I have,” he said, “and I don’t really think you have much standing in this debate.” He was right: early reactions to Sanders’s covenantal nomism were hindered by a lack of expertise in the Jewish literature.
I would have went with Dunn over Sanders to start. The new perspective on Paul by Christians today comes out of EP Sanders telling us what Palestinian Judisism was like outside the Christian caricature.
I know Wright sees the entirety of Mark 13 in the past. Judaism was
I am increasingly disappointed in Wright. In Dunn, too; and most in Sanders, whom Wright praises for his focus on Palestinian Judaism, but criticized for his “muddled” theological treatment of Paul.
I first discovered and shared, in www.religious forums.com (a site for a multitude of international heathen), the fact that the Mishnah distinguishes between Jews and non-Jews not on the basis of “works of the Law”, but on the basis that God gave the Torah to Israel at Sinai. Period!!!
In a brief conversation with a Jewess, she affirmed that, although I am not a Jew by genealogy, practice, or conversion, if I wanted to please God, Jesus was unnecessary; all I needed to do was become a Noahchide (which, technically, is a formal process, and abide by the Laws of Noah.)
I wasn’t going to post here because Paul is not a pressing interest of mine at the moment, but I took a class in the New Testament at Regent College (Vancouver) last year. The professor did not delve into “the New Perspective” in great detail, but mentioned it tangentially in one of the lectures. For what its worth, here’s a summary of my hastily-scrawled notes during that lecture:
While not having done much more than read a commentary by Wright, my impression is similar to your notes - the “New Perspective” makes some valid points, but tends to overcorrect in the opposite direction.
Did you ever look at Barclay’s Paul and the Gift? I started reading Paul and the Power of Grace and am excited to get into it. I do like these popularized versions of a scholarly text.
There is no way I could have read Keener’s massive Miracles, but his audiobook Miracles Today was outstanding to me.
I think most of Mark 13 is about the 1st century. But ‘that day’ indicates a break, which I think then refers to Jesus’ return. The parallel account in Matthew 24 makes it more clear. There the disciples are recorded as asking not only about the Temple’s destruction but their linking, mistakenly, of that with Jesus’ return in judgement. I appreciate there are different understandings, but I think the ‘futurist’ view is probably wrong, just as the futurist view of Revelation is wrong (666 = Nero!). Ian Paul has presented a decent understanding on his blog in a number of articles.
Im not convinced about his ‘new perspective’ (Im still not sure how he understands justification - I vaguely remember him on a recording with James Dunn agreeing that one is only ‘justified’ at the end of one’s life, as it will be dependant on the life lived), but he is right about Jesus’ ‘coming’. The Greek can mean equally coming or going! It’s a reference to Daniel, where a being ‘like a son of man’ approaches the Ancient of Days and he is given the kingdom - the being is the Son, the Ancient of Days the Father.
I heard a little while back Wright was changing his view and wondered if this statement was an indication of that
In fact, Luther himself developed the theology that we are at the same time both righteous and sinful. He knew perfectly well that he was still a sinner, even though in Christ and by faith, God had declared him righteous.
According to the Gospel Coalition website it seems he clarified some time ago that when he wrote good works in the believer’s life are a ‘basis’ for ‘final justification’ (whatever that is), he didnt actually mean ‘basis’ as a normal person would understand it, but rather as evidence that the person had been justified in the first place. Most Christians would agree with that latter understanding, it’s just a shame he didnt say that clearly previously.
Having watched some of his youtube videos, Im not sure if he ever clearly answers the questions put to him!
Yes – it’s not uncommon in prophecy to have two different events or sets of events that are similar talked about in a single discourse where details of one are mixed in with details of the other in distinct sentences or paragraphs; it’s even possible for a single statement to be shared by both events (though many conservative theologians deny this, it’s hard to avoid in the major prophets).
I like reminding people that the only reason that the Apocalypse made it into the canon was that Christians back then, especially those in the west end of the empire, read it and saw what it talked about happening around them.
Just recently I bumped into a conversation online where someone was arguing that the term “Son of Man” was proof that Jesus was not God. My reaction was “Read Daniel 7!!!”
BTW, Michael Heiser does an amazing job with that passage.
On occasion he strikes me as being in a space many speakers stumble into, of hearing what they expected to be asked rather than what was actually asked.
“Good works as evidence that the person had been justified” is exactly the doctrine of the Reformation (both Lutheran and Reformed). I remember that I was repeatedly stunned while reading Wright: his explanation of Paul’s Epistles, their context, and so forth, seemed quite sound - but his criticisms of the Reformation theology were often pointed at a straw man instead of the reformational teachings as they really were.